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Opinion Contributor

The Facebook bump

Facebook’s value can’t be gaged by the size of a candidate’s following, the authors write. | AP Photo

By MATTHEW MACWILLIAMS and EDWARD ERIKSON | 11/8/12 11:39 AM EST

If campaigns were won and lost by the number of Facebook fans a candidate recruits, Senator Scott Brown would have defeated Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday: 370,536 fans to 316,312. But instead Warren pulled out a narrow victory at the polls.

While Brown had more Facebook fans than Warren, Warren’s campaign did a superior job of engaging her fan base. On Election Day, 32 percent of Warren’s social network – over 100,000 fans — were liking, commenting, and sharing news about her campaign on Facebook. Brown, on the other hand, engaged just 12 percent of his network or about 45,000 people. Did Warren’s savvy social media skills give her a Facebook bump that helped to propel her to victory? What impact did Facebook have on other competitive Senate and House races across the country?

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Social media has finally come of age in America. Over 150 million adults in the U.S. are now registered Facebook users. Each month, the average American spends about 7 hours and forty-five minutes on social media which makes up about twenty-two percent of the total time Americans spend online. During the 2010 election, political scientist James Fowler demonstrated the political power of Facebook. He helped to deliver and track 61 million get-out-the-vote messages that increased voter turnout by an estimated 340,000. This year, almost every serious candidate for federal office invested in a Facebook page and strategy.

To measure the impact of Facebook on election outcomes in 2012, we analyzed the relationship between fan base and fan engagement in thirty-three of the most competitive House races and all thirty-three Senate races over a three-month period. The initial results of our study are compelling: candidates with the skills to engage supporters enjoyed a Facebook bump on Election Day.

Eight out of nine Senate races considered to be toss ups this year were won by the candidate with the more engaged Facebook fan base. In the North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Nevada Senate races, where the major party candidates had comparable fan networks, the candidate with the more engaged fan base won. Senate campaigns in Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Indiana were also won by those candidates with the most engaged Facebook fan base even though their bases were smaller than their opponents. For example, in Virginia, Tim Kaine’s fan base was one half the size of George Allen’s, but Kaine’s base was 4.5 times more active and engaged. And in Montana, Senator Jon Tester won the trifecta: he enjoyed a larger and more engaged Facebook fan base than his opponent and won re-election. Only in the Arizona Senate race did a more engaged fan base fail to correlate with victory on Election Day.